Effect of cross-linking on the conductivity and material properties of PVA–iron oxide-based solid polymer electrolytes
摘要
Solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) are a complex version of polymer electrolytes (PEs). They possess distinctive characteristics and find extensive applications in several domains such as electronics, solar cells, memory devices, and more. Despite their advantages, the limited conductivity, and constraints on the other related electronic properties of these materials prevent them from being utilised in several important fields. In this study, we have attempted to increase the conductivity of polyvinyl alcohol–iron oxide SPE films using different cross-linking agents like glycerol, succinic acid, and glyoxal. These materials are valuable in various applications, such as electronics, energy storage, and biomedical devices, due to their lightweight, flexible, biocompatible and easy-to-process features. In this work, a series of cross-linked polymer composites was prepared, and the films were fully characterised by a variety of techniques, including IR, UV, FE SEM, BDS, PXRD, XPS, and tensile strength studies etc. Following the conductivity analysis of all the composites, the sample containing 48.58% of glycerol cross-linking was found to exhibit the best conductivity, peaking at 2.38 × 10–3 Scm−1 at 100 °C. Other samples containing reduced percentage of glycerol (38.65%) exhibited superior material properties, i.e. stability, mechanical strength, crystallinity, etc., however, with a significant decrease in conductivity to 4.30 × 10–4 Scm−1 (at 100 °C). Further various parameters, such as dilectric properties and capacitance were analyzed. This work demonstrates the development of solid polymer electrolytes with tuneable properties with potential application in the energy storage applications.